Race in Blink

Which of our central questions does your text address most thoroughly?

Race and Equality

Even though Blink does not primarily address the issue of race at first glance, it reveals deep psychological findings that have meaning in today's time. It also harkens back to the racist times in America, such as the attitudes expressed in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The results are such that the idea of race exists not only in outward behaviors, like those in Huckleberry Finn, but deep down in the subconscious. For example, researchers had subjects take the Race IAT test, a test that determines the level of racial prejudice in a person. The test reveals that not only does the test uncover the conscious attitudes of a person, but also the unconscious attitudes – or, in other words, “the immediate, automatic associations that tumble out before we’ve even had time to think.” Gladwell finds that 80 percent of those who take the test have pro-white associations.

Because of these findings, I think about the issue of race that was raised in the previous texts that we read and discusses, most notably Huck Finn. If 80 percent of people who take the test are pro-white (and I’m making an assumption here), then I wonder about the attitudes of the people described in Huck Finn. Considering the actions of people back then in Huck Finn’s time, would 90 percent be pro-white? Maybe closer to 100 percent?

This issue also begs the question if society today is moving towards more racial equality or not. Sure, we have the Civil Rights Act, which prevents discrimination of those of color, but does that really mean we are equal? Are we as racist today as in Huck Finn’s time, with just a single law in place to say that we can’t be discriminatory towards those of color? Are we truly making progress towards total racial equality?

Gladwell also found that when car dealers provided initial offerings to those of both white and colored skin, that those of colored skin often were offered a higher price than those of white skin. People think that colored men (and women) are suckers. Maybe we today, as a society, are not lynching black men for crimes that we think that they commit, but we are still committing crimes ourselves today by our discriminatory actions towards those of color.